Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Cars, and Trucks, and Things That Go

In addition to a fondness for scorpion hunting, my little friends and I also shared a love of toy vehicles.

I had a dump truck. It was made of bright yellow and red, modular plastic with big, knobby tires and a little lever that lifted the bed up, dumping its contents. My friends became instantly enamored of it and repeatedly ran it back and forth across the bare dirt ground until the wheels fell off (this initially caused me some anguish, but I believe we were ultimately able to reattach them, allowing the good times to go on).

They, in turn, had their own toy cars which I deeply coveted, elaborate constructions made from scrap wire. Each one was different, and they were remarkably realistic, but their most stunning feature was a full-sized steering column and steering wheel, also made of wire, extending up to waist height, allowing the boys to push the cars around and actually steer. Brilliant! I wanted one so bad.

Why didn't we just swap? An international, good will toy exchange - it would have been perfect.

I can vouch for the veracity of this story. In fact, the African children wore out Slim's Tonka truck. The ones made of coat hangers seemed somewhat more indestructible. Somewhere we have a picture of Slim playing with one.

We never give up our toys. Personally, I always gave a personality to my owned objects that made it very difficult during transitions involving the trash or ultimate destruction. Many tears. No way, the swap.